State v. Adams
| Decision Date | 17 March 2015 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. Yor–13–578. |
| Citation | 113 A.3d 583,2015 ME 30 |
| Parties | STATE of Maine v. Jerry Lee ADAMS. |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
Jamesa J. Drake, Esq. (orally), Drake Law, LLC, Auburn, for appellant Jerry Lee Adams.
Janet T. Mills, Attorney General, and Jamie R. Guerrette, Asst. Atty. Gen. (orally), Office of the Attorney General, Augusta, for appellee State of Maine.
Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, and HJELM, JJ.*
[¶ 1] Jerry Lee Adams appeals from a judgment convicting him of aggravated trafficking of scheduled drugs (Class A), 17–A M.R.S. § 1105–A(1)(B) (2014), and refusal to submit to arrest or detention (Class E), 17–A M.R.S. § 751–B(1)(A) (2014), entered in the Superior Court (York County, O'Neil, J. ) after a jury trial. Adams argues that the court erred by sustaining the State's objection to questions about the nature of the locale where the crime allegedly occurred. He also argues that the court erred when it denied his motion for a judgment of acquittal. We affirm the judgment.
[¶ 2] The record, when viewed in the light most favorable to the jury's verdict, supports the following facts. See State v. Cruthirds, 2014 ME 86, ¶ 2, 96 A.3d 80. On the night of January 2, 2013, Saco Police Officer Heath Mains stopped a vehicle on Jeannette Avenue in Old Orchard Beach and informed the driver that he would be searching her and the vehicle. Adams was a passenger in the backseat of the car. When Mains returned to his car to call for backup for the search, he saw Adams and a second passenger exit the vehicle. He ordered them back into the car, but Adams fled behind a nearby condominium building. Mains observed that Adams was wearing a large black down jacket, but did not see him holding anything when he fled. Mains stayed with the car until additional officers arrived and then showed them the direction in which Adams ran.
[¶ 3] One of those officers, Matthew Corbin, went to look for Adams behind the condominium complex and found him crouched against the building. As Corbin approached, Adams ran away from him in the direction of Mains and the stopped vehicle. When Mains saw Adams running with Corbin in pursuit, he tackled Adams, and both officers were able to handcuff Adams after a struggle. At that point, Officer Scott Sicard arrived to help Mains and Corbin. He asked Adams why he ran, and Adams replied that it was because the driver of the vehicle had bail conditions. Corbin also later asked Adams why he ran, and “he said something to the effect it's because I'm black.”
[¶ 4] Another officer, Daniel Beaulieu, conducted a pat-down search of Adams and found a leather pouch, which Beaulieu recognized as the type commonly used to hold a digital scale. Beaulieu then went back to search behind the condominium building because Mains believed that Adams may have dropped or hidden something there. Beaulieu noticed footprints in a snow bank along a nearby fence and then saw a nylon strap hanging on the fence. The strap was part of a small backpack, which Beaulieu seized. It had snowed several days earlier and remained very cold, but, Beaulieu testified, the footprints leading to the backpack “looked fresh.” The backpack did not have any snow or frost on it, but Beaulieu could not remember whether it was cold to the touch. When Beaulieu returned with the backpack, Mains asked Adams, who was being treated for injuries he had sustained in his struggle with the police, what he wanted them to do with his backpack. Adams responded, “What backpack?”
[¶ 5] Upon searching the backpack, the officers found twenty-eight small bags containing a white substance, a scale, a box of plastic sandwich bags, a magazine addressed to someone other than Adams, DVDs, and a cell phone. The scale had a plastic cover, but it also fit inside the pouch that Beaulieu found in Adams's pocket. Laboratory tests later confirmed that the bags contained 29.8 grams of cocaine base, also known as crack cocaine. No other forensic testing was performed on any of the items in the backpack.
[¶ 6] Several days later, a resident of one of the condominiums called the police and reported that she had found a black down jacket hidden in her backyard. Upon searching the jacket, which matched the description of the one worn by Adams, the police found two cell phones. There was no investigation into the ownership of the cell phones or search of the cell phones' contents.
[¶ 7] Adams was charged by indictment with two counts of aggravated trafficking of scheduled drugs (Class A), 17–A M.R.S. §§ 1105–A(1)(B), (D), and by complaint with one count of refusal to submit to arrest or detention (Class E), 17–A M.R.S. § 751–B(1)(A). The State dismissed one of the drug charges, and the two remaining charges were tried together in a two-day jury trial in August 2013.
[¶ 8] At trial, Adams elicited testimony from Maine Drug Enforcement Agent Kyle Moody that he was “very familiar” with the neighborhood, known as the Halfway area, where Adams was arrested. Moody testified that it is a busy area with hundreds of residents and that at least some of them live there year round. Adams then started to examine Moody about prior investigations he had conducted in that area, but the State objected. At a sidebar conference, Adams's attorney explained that he wanted to prove that this was “a high crime area” in order to cast doubt on Adams's ownership of the backpack, noting that there had been “over fifty” indictments for drug offenses in Old Orchard Beach in the past year. The court denied his request to continue that line of questioning, concluding that the testimony would be impermissibly speculative alternative suspect evidence pursuant to State v. Dechaine, 572 A.2d 130, 133–34 (Me.1990).
[¶ 9] The jury found Adams guilty of both charges. Adams had stipulated that he was previously convicted of drug trafficking in Massachusetts, so he was convicted of aggravated trafficking of scheduled drugs. See 17–A M.R.S. § 1105–A(1)(B). The court imposed a sentence on the drug trafficking charge of twelve years in prison with all but six years suspended and four years of probation, and on the charge of refusal to submit to arrest or detention, it imposed a concurrent six-month prison sentence.1 Adams appeals from the judgment of conviction for aggravated trafficking.2
[¶ 10] Adams argues that the court erred when it sustained the State's objection to his cross-examination of Moody about the “high crime” character of the Halfway neighborhood. He also contends that the evidence is insufficient to support the jury's guilty verdict and that therefore the court erred in denying his motion for a judgment of acquittal.
[¶ 11] We first consider Adams's argument that the court erroneously ruled that he could not develop testimony through Moody that the area where the backpack was found was a high-crime area where drug trafficking was common. We review the trial court's decision to exclude evidence for an abuse of discretion, and its “determination of relevance for clear error.” State v. Mooney, 2012 ME 69, ¶¶ 9, 11, 43 A.3d 972.
[¶ 13] The court's ruling was predicated on two different considerations. First, it referred to precedent governing the admissibility of alternative suspect evidence. We have held that a defendant may present “evidence that someone else may have committed the crime if that evidence has probative value sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt about the defendant's culpability.” State v. Mitchell, 2010 ME 73, ¶ 26, 4 A.3d 478. In invoking the analysis applicable to alternative suspect evidence, the court misapprehended the purpose of Adams's proposed examination. Even from his brief offer of proof, it is clear that Adams did not seek to present the evidence to show that some other particular person left the backpack containing cocaine on the fence. Rather, the apparent purpose of the evidence was to demonstrate more generally that, because this was a “high crime” area, a backpack containing crack cocaine was not out of place and was possibly left there by someone in the neighborhood, thereby providing the jury with an explanation for the backpack aside from Adams's alleged conduct. It was therefore incorrect for the court to state that Adams must “specifically identify somebody” in order for the evidence to be admissible.
[¶ 14] The second basis for the court's ruling, however, was relevance. In considering Adams's offer of proof, the court noted the speculative nature of the prospective evidence, stating that “it needs to be much more than just it's a high crime area and there [are] other potential suspects in the area.” Although our opinion in Dechaine, which the court cited, examines the admissibility of alternative suspect evidence, it ultimately focuses on the basic principle of relevance. 572...
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